CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 467 km round trip from Turin - roughly 6 h 29 in the saddle. The stops in between: Castello di Racconigi, Grinzane Cavour Castle, Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t and back through Grinzane Cavour Castle. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 38 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The Castello del Valentino stands on the left bank of the Po in the middle of Turin, in a park where students lie about on the grass and rowing crews slide past on the river. It looks like a French château, with pitched grey roofs, corner towers and a courtyard open to the water, and that is no accident. It was built for the dukes of Savoy and transformed in the seventeenth century by Christine of France, widow of Duke Victor Amadeus I, who wanted something of home in her adopted capital. Later it became a school of engineering and then a faculty of architecture, which gives the courtyard a pleasant, slightly scruffy academic life.
Read the complete Castello del Valentino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello del Valentino is where the day begins. Next is Castello di Racconigi.
Racconigi is a small town on the plain south of Turin, in Piedmont, surrounded by fields of maize and rice and lines of poplars. It is dominated by its castle, a grand residence of the House of Savoy, which ruled Piedmont and later Italy. Originally a medieval fortress, it was transformed over the centuries into a palace, with Baroque and neoclassical façades, and surrounded by a vast park with lakes, woods and a farm. The castle is part of the UNESCO-listed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, inscribed in 1997.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Racconigi comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grinzane Cavour Castle.
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the man who more or less engineered the unification of Italy, spent years as mayor of this little Langhe village before he went on to bigger things, and the square brick castle on its knoll still carries his name. He experimented with winemaking here too, at a time when Barolo was still finding its modern form, so the building sits at a neat crossroads of Piedmontese politics and Piedmontese wine.
Read the complete Grinzane Cavour Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Grinzane Cavour Castle. Next is Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t.
Genoa never tried to be pretty in the way Florence or Venice did. It tried to be rich, and succeeded, and the Strade Nuove, the new streets laid out in the sixteenth century, are the proof. The city's banking families, who financed the Spanish crown for decades, built palaces along Via Garibaldi, Via Balbi and Via Cairoli, and they did it on a steep, crowded slope where there was no room for gardens, so the grandeur is stacked into courtyards, loggias and monumental staircases. The palaces were registered in the Rolli, official lists that told the republic which houses should host visiting kings and cardinals, a bit like a medieval hotel guide for diplomats. UNESCO listed the system in 2006.
Read the complete Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t, about halfway. Next is back through Grinzane Cavour Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grinzane Cavour Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grinzane Cavour Castle sits at 250 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castello di Racconigi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castello di Racconigi comes up about 430 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castello del Valentino.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello del Valentino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello del Valentino closes the day.
Castello del Valentino → Castello di Racconigi is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Racconigi → Grinzane Cavour Castle is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grinzane Cavour Castle → Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t is 151 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t → back through Grinzane Cavour Castle is 150 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Grinzane Cavour Castle → back through Castello di Racconigi is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castello di Racconigi → Castello del Valentino is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.